1 Site Visit Report Alaska Seafood Processing Industry Petition Response

Lindsay Guzzo Environmental Engineer U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 Permits Division guzzo.lindsay@epa.gov

206-553-0268 Betsy Bicknell Senior Environmental Engineer Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG) betsy.bicknell@erg.com

703-633-1612

Plant Name Alaska Pacific Seafoods (subsidiary of North Pacific Seafoods)

Plant Address Kodiak, Alaska

NPDES Permit # AKG 528434

Date of Visit Tuesday, August 17, 2010 People Contacted Brandon Basso, Manager Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance

Seafood processed Black Cod (sable fish) Pacific Grey Cod

Halibut Salmon (all species) Crab (tanner and King)

Rockfish

Pollock

Sea cucumber

Skate Herring Octopus Flounder & Sole (numerous species) Ling Cod Numerous ancillary products from the species listed above

Products Fresh and frozen Whole (round) fish H&G (headed and gutted)

Fillets Roe (ikura and sujiko) Range of annual production vol ume [Confidential Business Information (CBI), removed from this report] Months of operation January – November. Discharge type Screened solids are trucked to Kodiak Fishmeal Company Screened wastewater is discharged through NPDES permitted outfall, meets O&G and TSS limits. Website www.northpacificseafoods.com

Alaska Pacific Seafoods (Alaska Pacific) is a subsidiary of North Pacific Seafoods. They process a wide variety of finfish into fresh or frozen products that include but are not limited to fillets, H&G, and whole round fis h. They also process tanner and King crab,2 sea cucumber, and skate. They do not make surimi and process pollock only a few weeks

per year. [CBI, removed from this report]

.

Alaska Pacific use about 550,000 gall ons per day of fresh water.

Operations. Fish harvested in large volumes, lik e pink salmon, arrive in tenders. Alaska Pacific pumps the fish from the tender’s holds into its holding tanks which are chilled

with freshwater and slush ice. Alaska Pacifi c has four large and four small fish holding

tanks. Fish harvested in smaller volumes are held in iced totes until processed.

Figure 1 shows the salmon processing line. Fish are headed and gutted. Blood and other waste are sluiced away from the processing li ne with water. Heads are transferred to a separate waste belt. Guts drop onto the gut belt so roe can be separated from the guts.

[CBI, removed from this report] After freezi ng, the blocks of frozen salmon are tipped out of the pans, glazed, and bagged for shipment ( Figure 4). [CBI, removed from this report]

Products are loaded into refrigerated shi pping vans. [CBI, removed from this report]

Halibut and sometimes black cod are gilled and gutted on the fishing vessel. Alaska Pacific removes the heads. [CBI, removed from this report]. Pollock and other types of cod are NOT gilled and gutted, but are de livered to Alaska Pacific whole.

Waste Management. Alaska Pacific discharges wastewater through its NPDES permitted outfall, 75 feet below th e surface, 500 feet from shore.

Waste is sluiced from the processing line as shown in Figure 5. Heads and guts are transferred by auger ( Figure 6 ) to a solid waste hopper. Some waste is placed directly into totes that are carried by fork lift to the truck loading area ( Figure 7 ). Waste is

washed down to floor drains and wastewat er accumulates in a sump. From the sump, wastewater and solids pumped to the interior-feed rotary screen ( Figure 8 ). The rotary screen discharges solid waste ( Figure 9 ) into the hopper two leve ls below the rotary screen. A dump truck backs under the hopper an d is loaded directly from the hopper. Figure 10 shows the underside of th e truck loading hopper.

The truck takes waste from the plant six to seven times per day. If the hopper is full, Alaska Pacific stops processing until the truck ar rives. They hire a th ird party to truck the waste to the fishmeal plant because this costs less than having their own truck and driver.

The rotary screen is 8 – 10 years old and re quires little to no maintenance. It is very reliable. The water that drains through th e screen is discharged through the permitted

outfall. Figure 11 shows the effluent sampling point. Al aska Pacific collects grab samples and analyzes them in their onsite laboratory for O&G, TSS, SS, and pH. They also have an onsite bacteriological lab for testing their roe products. They have not had any compliance problems.3 Figure 1.Salmon processing line

Figure 2. Loading block freezer4 Figure 3. Block freezer

Figure 4. Prepping blocks for shipping56 Figure 5. Waste sluicing7 Figure 6. Waste auger8 Figure7. Waste tote dumper

Figure 8. Rotary screen interior9 Figure 9. Rotary screen discharge10 Figure 10. Truck loading hopper11 Figure 11. Effluent sampling point